Learning to Ski

Hello,

So the other day I went to an indoor ski center for my first two lessons. I have a few questions since the group was packed and the Instructor was a bit quiet.

Q.1: How do I easily move without poles 'like an ice skater'? - I mainly just stay in the same place skidding or plod along, lifting my skis up and down to get little ground.

Q.2: This will be in my future lesson, I just want to get some prior knowledge before I go. How do I turn in S shapes, slaloming from side to side? At the moment we are doing snowplough turns which my experienced friend tells we won't need later on :) I just feel a bit slow and uncontrolled at the moment.

Thanks and any help would be appreciated as I am going to Sportwelt Amade in late March.

Q1: standing up straight you need to tilt your ski to its inside edge and push forward as you move forward alternate your inside edges almost like roller skating. Takes a bit of getting used to and master but better than just pushing with poles.

Q2: As you ski across a slope from one side to the other you should stand upright at the time you want to make a turn, this will put both ski's flat on the slope and automatically cause the tips to start pointing downwards. Don't lean back just allow the ski to travel forwards then the turn will automatically just happen. A you turn you should tilt both skis towards the slope so you will have the edges digging in and remember to put most of your weight on your outside ski, whilst doing this action also bend at the knee. Effectively you will pop up and down as you do each turn. Up to start turn down to complete. Much easier to show than explain lol ;-0

Good idea getting lessons and I would encourage you to book again on your holiday, very minimum mornings. Your mates probably think this is unnecessary but they are frankly delusional.
1) You will learn much faster and become much stronger skier in future
2) Is not that much fun being slowest in a group trying to ski runs that are beyond your technique.
3) You will meet some new people

Q1) See above and am sure poles will be introduced over your next few lessons

Q2) I would not be in a rush to do or think slalom. Skiing is really about a few building blocks, so take your lessons getting each one correct before worrying about speed.

Personally I would disagree with emphasis of above answer. Skiing is not really an active up and down sport. It is about keeping your skis in contact with snow which can manifest as an extension of your legs once angulated and then bringing them back under your body as you change turns (this you are not going to have to worry about for a while).

If you do want to accelerate learning then there are many good ski instruction series on youtube now. For me this works well and I can translate things to snow relatively easy so worth a try.

Am also a big believer that you can work on muscle memory at home to try and get your foundations correct. Particularly think about basic traverse position as in many ways high level skiing is not really and more and this and a simple pivot. Later rolling of the ankles as you commit to next turn.

Stand in front of table, hands loosely clenched in fist as if holding poles and resting on table. Slowly rotate from hips until feet are I guess 60-70 deg away from straight ahead (upper body and arms still facing forward). At this point you will be pretty close to perfect traverse position.
On snow you will eventually be able to link this position into turns by simply finding the centre of your ski and pivoting.

Get this right on flat slopes and only angulation to add as you progress. Skip this step and you will never be a good skier. Basically don't be in a rush to start doing strange things especially at advice of friends. You only have 3 basic things to learn and likely will take a lifetime. Welcome to skiing.

Thank you both for your advice and I will use it to my advantage on the slope. Referencing the muscle memory exercises I have done some of them already on knee direction during snowplow turns (all pressure on left leg to go right etc) but I am sure to take that idea up.

From my experience, you want to move from snowplough to parallel at the very earliest opportunity. Although I fell over quite a bit to start with, I pretty much learned to ski without doing any snowploughing. I'm always a bit baffled when I see people snow ploughing down red runs. If you are on a red run, you should have developed a reasonable parallel turn technique.

No short cuts really. It will take a few skiing weeks before you are feeling truly comfortable. Then you will need to deal with varying conditions which will include icy sections, moguls and busy pistes. These will all test your technique. It's all worth it in the end. Definitely have some lessons to you may end up hard wiring some bad techniques.

I too disagree with the first answer. This is a couple of degrees further down the line.

I like the idea, and practice it, of muscle memory exercises, but, ~ you need to be very clear of what you are doing, and why you are doing it.

I do not rush from snow plough to parallel. I have skied for many years, and while I have heard one particular regular on J2 dismissing snow plough, I use have used snow plough on a daily basis for almost 50 years. It is an essential part of skiing. It should be taught well.

Many people assume a linear progession in skiing. I never have. My belief is that is strongly beneficial to teach an earlier technique technical move, move it forwards, return and re-teach the same method on a slightly steeper slope. Then go back to the easier slope, with the improved technique.
At an opportune time, break the runs, stop, and do a few drills.

The student will not necessarily follow the logic of the progression, but by moving forwards/backwards/forwards, there is gradual, but much more solid progression with an average student.

OK, there are always exceptions, and I have had three beginners who won the top level ski school race, but you generally find they are an exception. (One was Dutch champion skater)

There is one progression area that I suggest is really important. That is to be cautious about moving too quickly to more steeper slopes. Some ski areas do have gradual gradient change, but most do not. In my view, this is the single cause of many people giving up skiing early, where, if slope change was taken more cautiously, there would be a greater percentage of upgrade skiers.

There are routines to deal with this.

Have to agree with Dave, if you look at the standard of average person on slope now has actually decreased. This at a time when equipment is exponentially better and easier to ski on than even 10yrs ago.

Your skis are shaped to turn so doing something like a parallel turn is easy. Problem is because people don't have the basics correct steeper slope, moguls, slush, powder etc. and they can't ski the slope. Hence you are forever stuck as an low intermediate. Only way to avoid this is lessons.

Every year I still have a few mornings and at end of them am a far stronger skier. Non of these focus on anything very fancy is always re-visiting the basics. Quite often it feels like we are being a little nit picky when discussing runs or reviewing video. But when angle increases or speed comes on then is all about strong positions.

I was one of those snowploughing down the red slopes :) I only had 3 hours on a nursery slope and the next lesson the same instructor took me all the way up and we skied top to bottom for three hours, all on a plough. No harm in this at all, it's not the way we ski but it's one of the ways to control the skis, it works and this is what important. Gave me confidence too. I didn't go proper parallel until my second year, but semi-parallel that I mastered in my first year was useful, and it was something I could reliably fall back when something didn't work. I also didn't use poles in my first year at all. Even for drills an instructor would give me one of his. Of course, and especially if you are a holiday skier, your time-frame will be different, but there will be the same kind of progression. So, continue with your lessons, you seem to be on the right track, poles, techniques to use your ski shape to turn - they will all be introduced in a due time. Way too many people insist on using the poles before they can use them properly, they may think they look good, but this is only until they start moving. Enjoy your holiday and definitely take lessons on your holiday too. It will be money and time well invested.